Word: abbotts
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...University of Michigan, earning the 1987 Sullivan Award as America's best amateur athlete, winning the gold-medal baseball game in the Seoul Olympics and being drafted No. 1 by the Angels. Though he is expected to open the season in the AA or AAA minors, for now Abbott's shirt says ANGELS. "Just looking around at everything here," he says, "it hits you. A big- league camp...
...faced in batting practice was Lance Parrish, a former Detroit catcher he had been partial to in Flint. ("I definitely didn't want to bean him.") The ball came flying back with a wonderful new timbre. "He was the first guy I ever faced with a wooden bat," says Abbott, too young to see the sadness in how far a player has to come these days to escape aluminum. After hitting against the rookie, Parrish moved behind the plate: "He probably has as strong an arm as any lefthander I've ever caught. His motion is so fluid, the ball...
...Abbott's way of juggling his glove amounts to legerdemain. He throws the ball and puts it on, catches the ball and takes it off. "The transfers aren't that difficult," he insists. "There's no dramatic story that goes with it. Just a matter of learning to do things a little differently. I never told myself, 'I want to be the next Pete Gray ((a one-armed outfielder who played the 1945 season with the St. Louis Browns)).' I said, 'I want to be the next Nolan Ryan...
...roommate this spring, Abbott drew Rick Turner, the bullpen catcher, who partnered Angels outfielder Devon White through the Pioneer League but never made it past A ball himself. "As a kid, I used to hang out at the stadium," Turner says. "Now I'm a fan who gets to put on a uniform. It's not that I have visions of a comeback. I guess I dream of being a coach." Into the night, he and Abbott explore the minor leagues and the various levels of dreaming...
...Abbott has pitched five innings, allowing three hits and one run, striking out six (including A's terror Jose Canseco). One double-play ball got bollixed in his mitt, but he is under way. "You do wonder," he says, "if you're going to be the guy who was billed to make it, who never did, or if you're going to look back someday and say, 'This is where it all began.' But I've always dreamed, 'What if this happens,' and it always has. I've been lucky...